This is a fantastic collection of essays. My only suggestion is that perhaps the gain should be adjusted, as some of the readers seem to speak much more softly than others.

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I agree, but I didn't realize the recordings were so low until it was too late. I don't really know how to "master" the tracks without the microphone hiss becoming out of control.

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I am downloading the album right now. I'm sure it's full of brillant ideas and passinate truthes. If you would still like this re-mastered, I could do that for you, it pretty easy with the right software. Many thanks, Jonra

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the world needs more truth such as these!
it is people such as yourselfs that make me realize the world may not be completly fucked!

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the world needs more truth such as these!
it is people such as yourselfs that make me realize the world may not be completly fucked!


THANK YOU

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why no chapter W, "history" pages, or afterword?

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It's true, the recordings are not the entire book. A lot of this was done for logistical reasons and for other purposes that aren't worth going into. If you or anyone else wants to record the missing pieces, though, we'll put them online here.

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My dad just gave me his old computer, and I may be interested in recording some readings. I don't know if my voice is entirely desirable, but it's better than nothing. What should I do with the files if I record?

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i'll do at least one recording. at least, i'll try. i know i can record into my computer - not sure if i have whatever software is required to convert to mp3, but one of the online tools should allow me to do something like that - Odeo or something. i'll give it a whirl.

if there are specific chapters/pages I should look at, please let me know. i was thinking doing whatever is not here - starting with the big chunk at the back - 'W is for Working'. Not sure if "history pages" refers to the Seattle protest page, but I might try that. And then maybe 'Afterworld'.

I actually really like the idea of many contributors - difference voice with each section. Very cool. So, I'll just start with 'W is for Working'. Will post an URL when I'm done and have it posted.

If I need to change direction, just holla on these boards, I suppose.

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Tried my first one. It's not so good, I think. I need to figure out how to be loud/clear without being able to hear my breathing on the mic. If I move the mic away from my mouth further, it seems like my voice is too low. Hmmm. I'm open to suggestions, of course.

Here's a link to a flash player playing the mp3:
http://studio.odeo.com/audio/8560603

Here's the straight mp3:
http://odeo.com/show/8560603/1169388/download/TheStockholmActionNovember1999DaysOfWarNightsOfLoveP.242.mp3

And let's see if the embedded player will work in these comments:

powered by ODEO

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was this the issue with the article from the singer of Avail about trainhopping?

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I couldn't say. That review just happens to be the widely used abstract for the book.

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You guys don't seem to know jack about capitalism. All your criticisms are directed at state hampered capitalism, that is you correctly rail against mercantalism, fascism, and other various non free-market institutions. Corporations are artificial constructs granted by a state. Competition is inherently bad in your model, as opposed seeing it as people making choices as to who they want to trade with.

My simple question is:

Would you use violence to prevent people from TRADING their property (or possessions, if you prefer) ?

This is a trap - You either support domination (with violence) over what you perceive as domination (even though no violence is taking place) or you don't really mind capitalism.

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Well, capitalism that is uninhibited is slightly better, but still, it hampers gift exchange... I'm with Kropotkin on this one - A society based on gift exchange is infinitely easier to comprehend than a capitalist society...

A purely unrestricted capitalist system would still end up with monopolies... These would still restrict people's actions... You can easily assume that a capitalist would buy the homes of everyone in town who got into hard times, thus putting them into subservient positions... Also, capitalists offering loans to people who are in dire straits would produce unfree conditions... So you'd end up with umpteen authoritarian town-states that would eventually meld into bigger states, eventually replicating the current conditions... This is *NOT* freedom... It's way better to nip capitalist traits in the bud...

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But capitalism is not against gift exchange. It is about choice. You can exchange without compensation, or you can exchange with compensation. Both are voluntary. Freedom means not giving in to the demands of others unless you will it or demand compensation for your loss. And in either case isn't mutual gift exchange just time-differentiated trade exchange?

"A purely unrestricted capitalist system would still end up with monopolies."

How? If there is no legal barrier (state force) to entering into a given field then a monopoly can not arise. How can free entry and people's choices as to who they trade with create a monopoly? If it can happen then the people willed it. Theory and evidence supports the fact that without state intervention all voluntary attempts to create a monopoly or cartel failed precisely because the very incentive to create it (to maximize profits) was exactly the same reason to cheat or establish new firms (to maximize profits). Unhampered competition does not create monopolies. Only a monopolist (the state) can create monopolies and cartels.

"You can easily assume that a capitalist would buy the homes of everyone in town who got into hard times, thus putting them into subservient positions."

How can a single individual purchase the homes of everyone in town?

1) If he had the ability to do so, then he must have gotten the money by previously satisfying the people he traded with, and the people that sold their homes did it willingly.

2) If the people sold their homes, why are they still in the town? Who in their right mind would sell their home and then rented it back? They can only sell their house if they plan to move to a more favorable location.

3) Why would an individual buy homes in a depressed area where everyone is having hard times and leaving? This idiot must be a glutton for financial punishment.

4) Individual action takes place in TIME. No individual can immediately purchase all the homes in a town, without attracting attention of the people who live there or other capitalists. Either way, a depressed town and competition will lower the house prices, and hence make it livable again.

"capitalists offering loans to people who are in dire straits would produce unfree conditions."

Why would people loan money if it wasn't in anticipation of improving their life? Why would someone loan them interst-free money if there is a high risk of them defaulting on it? Why would the individual in dire straits not first go to their friends, family or community for interst free assistance?

Not understanding the reason for interest is not to understand that TIME is a universal principle of human action. Humans prefer goods & services sooner than later, and they must pay a premium for this service: the interest rate, if they wish to have someone offer them the money in the present.

"So you'd end up with umpteen authoritarian town-states that would eventually meld into bigger states"

Only political force can create bigger states. Theory an evidence supports this.

"This is *NOT* freedom... It's way better to nip capitalist traits in the bud."

By what method? Please answer my original question. Can you use force (use restriction of freedom) to create freedom?
I contend that the best you can do is convince people that gift exchange is better than trade, but you can't force people into this.

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What many of us are missing is that although our government and institutions like to flont the fairness and freeness of capitalism,, particularly in the United States, this is infact very far from the truth. The government is always bailing out huge coorporations using the money it get from taxes. If it hadn't been for tax dollars pumped into company's like boeng, Lockeed Martin, the drug industry, and countless others these companies would have fallen under market forces. The government is always working with bussiness. They even went to the moon to help the computer and technology industry develope. This is not rubbish Anarchist thought either it is fact. why else would billions of tax dollars be spent to see some clown hop around an emty lunar landscape. Besides of course to help the huge technology industry find a path. Look where technology is today. Thanks the journey to the moon these companies staied afloat while there wasn't any market for them. This is all part of the way thigs are done in this country. The public takes all the risk, while the capitalist individial makes all the profits. This of course isn't true of small bussiness but it is absolutely the case for huge corporations. So don't give me all that talk about free market when companies spend billions of dollars advertizing the same useless products with a different name. I could go on and talk about all the wars that were fought including the one we in iraq and how it obviously has to do with capital. Perhaps many of you already know so I whould like to end by recommending Failed States by Noam chomsky.
Free market or far form it

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Just because there are no legal barriers does not mean a monopoly cannot develop. Economic barriers (such as the cost of entering said market) also play a role.

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Actually capitalism uninhibited would NOT be "slightly better", it would be MUCH worse. In fact an unrestricted market wold destroy the planet and quickly end life on earth. Read Chomsky's "Government in the Future" for a more detailed example. (You can find the audio on Znet).

Gift exchange, while romantic, is also an unrealistic theory for an economic system, that is it has a number of serious flows. Many of my fellow anarchists seem to be hitting a brick wall when it comes to thinking about economics and alternatives.

First is requires perfect people, people that have somehow transcended greed, individualism, selfishness etc. That I think is a mistake for a vision of the future, we have to assume normal people, that is people that are, capable of both empathy and pathology.

Second it does nothing to create an equitable or equal society, nothing to address the problems of empowerment in work, or in fact work inequality at all. In this sense its laughable. We need a system to insure that the society is managed collectively, that dicison are made directly and democratically and that work and empowerment are shared.

Michael Albert of Znet, has some good audio on this called anarchist economics, there is also some great info on ParEcon or Participatory Economics at ParEcon.org

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There are two distinct types of property: personal/communal property and private/public property. The former (personal/communal) reffers to somebody's ability to use the tool. For example the room i am sitting in is my personal property, because i can use it. Private/public property on another hand reffers to the ability to stop somebody else from using it. For example the room i am sitting in is the private property of my land-lord.

Anarchists are for freedom, and as such we support personal/communal property, which is consitant with the idea of gift economy. Private property is restrictive by it's very definition, and as such is anti-anarchic.

And since there is nothing wrong with defending oneself or the community from the attack that can destroy the freedom, anarchists will be against all forms of private property; and since capitalism (any form) is based upon the idea of denying another the right to use something which they need anarchists will oppose it.

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Heres a story. I decide to make a chair with my own two hands I decide to use it to sit in. Someone comes along and asks me can I use that chair when you are done. I ask him how long do you want to use it for. he says Until I am done with it. Should I give him the chair. Will I give him the chair. Another person comes along and has a table and he tells me that he will give me a table for the chair. I decide that since I don't know how to make tables I will trade him. This is how capitalism works. I am intruiged to how products and services would be made in the ancro-communist society. If you don't have the right to own your property (ie goods and services) who stops you from owning it. I made the chair. If I am not allowed to own it then someone must force it from my possesion. Some of you might think that this is oversimplified however I believe this shows a huge hole in the in your anarco-communist system.

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well, I hope you know that in the Capitalist system we live in today the person who makes the chair Does not own it. The person who made the top hit record for example does not own it. Instead a reconrd company like colombia owns it So, I'm afriad your exampe is too simplistic. ownersship is a very cloudy subject today. The maker is almost always never the owner. The big mac is not made in the board room of mcdonalds neither do the share holders make it. it is made by the worker from the bigining to end. Yet he or she doesn't own it. The worker is given a meager conpensation otherwise known as a salary to relinquish their creation to the capitalis. The question you should have asked is how do you maintain productivity in an anarcho-communist society. For which i whould have given you a simple answer

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I actually think this is one of the least interesting questions to draw from this text. However, the difference is that you made the chair. I pay my landlord's mortgage, and I make my bosses products -- and yet they are not mine. Your example is possession, the latter is private property.

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I think we need to get away from an understanding of property as only existing at the polar opposite types of "public and private"...as a few folks have already pointed out, ownership is a cloudy subject. Think of it this way: without an ever-present institutionalization of human violence (a state), property is subject to a negotiation between people who use the land to survive (everyone)...it seldom works in terms of exclusive use and occupancy without some sort of armed force to 'protect' it. That being said, some semblance of private property exists without state intervention all the time--a family's land is there's because they live there and grow food there and it is understood that taking their home and stealing their grain would be theft. It doesn't mean that nobody has the right to move across their land or hunt or gather firewood or even request hospitality which they know can't be refused. If exclusive use rights are granted by tradition it generally is accompanied by periodic redistribution and/or areas which are commonly understood to be held 'in common' so that everyone can use them for the necessities of life (wood, hunting/fishing, foraging, etc.)

So when we talk about anarchist society being characterized by common ownership of the means of production it means something entirely different than most communists (because we don't have a state to enforce the distribution system). Taking into account that the new communist form of property probably isn't going to be purely communal in the sense that some people--let's say the workers of a particular factory--will have privileged rights to access, occupy, use the machines. Since any free society ought to be based on the idea of self-ownership and as such ownership over the product of one's labor, 'the community' doesn't necessarily have claims on what the workers of this factory produce. This is to say, that a community assembly may request that the factory workers send all their widgets to public storehouse-A but it doesn't mean that they have any coercive power to make the workers give up control of their product...indeed (I hope)they could be expected to fiercely guard their right to exchange the fruits of their labor as they see fit. If the terms of the community assembly...or the industrial federation or whatever do not appear to be fair, the workers are free to choose better terms or they are being robbed by the state (even if this or that popular organization temporarily creates an army just to keep this group of workers in line).

So, in my opinion, a system of free, uncoerced exchange is an inevitable and desirable result of anarchist conditions. This isn't to say, however, that every workplace will become a collective of cutthroat capitalists. If the group of workers in question sees that their participation in the commune would allow them free access to the goods and services all the other participating workers were producing, surely they would drop all objections and be willing to do their part to keep the system going.

Still, this type of arrangement may not be available immediately...in fact, it may not even be possible in some/most/all modern contexts (who knows? its a very different world than it was 150 years ago!). What would happen if a free-access communist economy didn't immediately spring into being (and I don't think it could)? Well, I believe we would immediately see a market system of exchange develop relatively quickly based on credit (if not on a new currency). Social bonds would be created (as Bakunin repeatedly pointed out) because of the necessity for trustworthy people who honor their contracts. Individual firms/worker's collectives would voluntarily 'tax' themselves to provide for social services (for themselves and their families and friends). They would even create their own banking system to fund expansion and upkeep--and to provide for the needs of higher order industrial organizations. If these higher-order industrial organizations...or even some sort of more general federation of communities were responsible for extending credit and insurance, they would automatically be creating a form of property that combines community control and worker control in a very interesting and organic way: workers have control of their daily lives because they run the workplace democratically yet the large-scale decisions are made considering a number of inputs: community and industrial organizations (creditors and insurers) as well as the workers themselves.

So we have in this model, developing naturally out of a complex network of negotiations and exchanges, a system of joint worker-community ownership which balances the tension between individuals and communities (one group of workers and the larger society). Furthermore, it utilizes the best parts of markets and planning to create a harmoniously functioning, self-sustaining socioeconomic system.

Tell me what you think!

Solidarity

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first of all, how do you not know how to make a table?? i think it would be a lot simpler than making a chair.

or you could just show your friend how to make chairs and help him make one. that way you'll both have a chair to sit on and he'll never have to ask you for yours because he's got his own. then you guys can make another chair for your third friend who's got the table, and the three of you can eat a meal from the food you guys grew together.

and if your friend is an asshole and tries to take your chair without asking then tell him to go fuck himself and kick him out of your autonomous agrarian collective; he's not going to be able to survive without it.


on another note, do you really need chairs and tables in order to sit and eat comfortably?

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quin said:

"My simple question is:

Would you use violence to prevent people from TRADING their property (or possessions, if you prefer) ? "


That's the problem--there's a big difference between the concepts of property and possession, and socialists believe that the idea of property has faulty philosophical grounds.

But that's fine, because, in my humble opinion, in Anarchism people would not want to submit to the capitalist, and those that do out of ignorance will see how oppressive it is and will find freedom among socialists that respect their true rights. And the capitalist, who needs to exploit others in order to exist, will disappear slowly.

So, no, no Anarchist should ever force another person do anything, the truth just needs to be shown by example, as we must do now in the current state of things--show others the truth of anarchism by example and education.

So there's no conflict between us, we have the same common goal: Anarchy. We just differ in our opinions of how things will develop in Anarchism, which doesn't really separate us as Anarchists. All Anarchists need to understand this and unite.

In Anarchism the truth will shine as falsehoods vanish on their own.

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Just look at the examples of communal property and the alien concept of private property that Anglo-Saxons brought with them over to North and South America. Even the African kingdoms were confused, one was quoted to have said, "Does a man get punished if he steps on the ground?" People do not understand the definitions of possession and property.
Of course this concept of communal property comes in play when talking of things people need to live and not one person should own them as the Natives in the New World continuously pressed.
Read, "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn, or watch "The Corporation" which can be downloaded for free.

Live free, solidarity.

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not that it truly matters in the eternal scheme of things, but there are several chapter titles spelled incorrectly.

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We've done a lot of translations from this book for our zine. I've read it though, so I downloaded Emma's essays, this is a really nice way to 'read', cause you can't go through a book riding on your bike. ;) Thanks.

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Thank you thank you

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i am unable to find the download on bittorrent...how can i download this?

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You can download this from indytorrents.org. thank you.

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Great project. Keep up the good work!

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